The quarterback competition between Jayden Daniels and Garrett Nussmeier went down to the wire during LSU camp, but this week's adversity won't lead Brian Kelly to go back on his decision.
In fact, Kelly had high praise for his quarterback despite the 40-13 loss to the hands of No. 8 Tennessee on Saturday.
"We think that the the one part of the offense that that was pretty good today was was the quarterback," Kelly said, simply.
And the numbers would seem to bear that out. Daniels finished the game 32-of-45 for 300 yards and a touchdown, along with an interception on his final pass of the game. He also added 38 rushing yards. It didn't appear Nussmeier was ever close to getting into the game, and that's in line with how Kelly addressed it after the game. After a question was posed indicating that it appeared Daniels was struggling, Kelly shut it down.
"Well, we see it differently," he said.
The Tigers quarterback was also playing without his starting LT in freshman Will Campbell, and starting guard Garrett Dellinger went out with a knee injury. That was part of the issue that resulted five sacks of Daniels on the day.
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WHAT HAPPENED TO CAMPBELL?
The surprise absence of the day came in the form of LSU's left tackle, news that was broken by Will Campbell himself when he posted an image from a hospital bed prior to the game. Kelly said the freshman suffered a medical "episode" during Friday's walkthrough and he had to be hospitalized.
He had multiple tests done, none of which indicated anything serious. The issue appears to be related to dehydration, he said, though the team will know more in the coming days.
How about Dellinger?
Kelly classified the injury as a "knee strain." He'll have an MRI and the team will know more after that is completed.
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ON THE AGGRESSIVE 4TH DOWN PLAY-CALLING
The LSU Tigers weren't shy about going for it on 4th down in this game, including on a 4th and 2 early in the game while they were well into field goal range. LSU failed on its first two attempts and 0-3 in the game.
They also went on 4th and 9 late in the first half that ultimately set up a field goal for Tennessee prior to the half and a 23-7 lead.
Kelly said the decision-making was simple in that moment.
"Necessity, I felt like we had to make something happen in those situations. You know, I'm not somebody that kind of looks at what happened in the past I still feel confident in my group. It still was a green/go scenario for us and when we look at the analytics, it was right on the edge. It was a it was a fourth and 10 go ... in our in our book," Kelly said. "So again, I could have taken a conservative route there I just felt like we needed to continue to be aggressive."
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HOW DO YOU FIX THE SPECIAL TEAMS ISSUES?
Jack Bech is now getting the lion's share of return opportunities, but the struggles remain on special teams. Bech muffed the opening kickoff and the Volunteers took advantage for 7, and a 58-yard punt return set up another score for Tennessee on the ensuing possession.
"I mean, it stinks. Right? You can't give up points. Right? I mean, Jack Bech is the best guy we have. They put up a pooch kick into the corner. I mean, he's got to haul up there and catch that football. ... I'm back there with him and we're working on those kicks. We didn't execute there.
"We outkicked our coverage. We bomb one into the wind. We give that returner about 20 yards separation and ... one of our gunners doesn't get off a block. He's the best guy we got. So we just got to coach better and maybe we got to simplify some things. So we'll go back and we'll look at special teams. And we'll look if there's things that we got to simplify even more to make sure that those mistakes [stop], because you're absolutely right, you can't you can't spot anybody 10 points and expect to win football games."